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Back to Earth
"This is too weird for words!" - (Back to Earth, Part Two) '"Back to Earth"' (sometimes incorrectly called Series IX) is a three part mini-series of the science fiction sitcom ''Red Dwarf, which was broadcast on the British television channel Dave in three parts on April 10th through April 12th 2009. It is also the first new episodes of the series in almost ten years. Plot Part One Part one begins on Red Dwarf, nine years after the events of Series VIII. Lister (Craig Charles) and Rimmer (Chris Barrie) are in their sleeping quarters together, with Rimmer being a hard-light hologram now (seemingly the answer to the last Series's cliffhanger). Lister pulls of an elaborate joke just to cheese Rimmer off, he notes that they are onto their last tank of water, and starts to eat tomatoes he labouriously gathered from the supply deck. He explains that even though he hates and is allergic to tomatoes, it helps to save water. When Rimmer asks how, Lister sneezes due to allergies onto a piece of clothing on an ironing board, and uses the moisture to iron. Rimmer is disgusted, but figures out that Lister is just trying to get to him. After being lectured by Rimmer, Lister heads off with a bunch of flowers. He heads over to a grave marker, and we see Kochanski's picture (Chloë Annett). He then tries, but fails to read "Sense and Sensibility" to her grave. The Cat (Danny John-Jules) then leaps in soaked and miserable and the two head back to Rimmer. Cat tells of his misadventures near the remaining water supply, where he was attacked by a sea monster. Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) returns from his holiday spent in a broom cupboard and they all decide what to do. The crew go down into the tank in a diving bell to face it, minus Rimmer who weaseled his way into being up controlling the diving bell. Rimmer than accidentally makes them think they are being attacked, but then after he realizes that it isn't there he returns to his car magazine. He then turns on music and grooves to it as the sea monster, a squid, actually does attack the crew down on the diving bell. As they struggle, Rimmer continues to ignore them until he finally realizes and brings them back up. Once out, with Cat holding one of its tentacles Lister carved off, Kryten surmises that it is a dimension hopping leviathan, that chose the Red Dwarf water tank for safety reasons. There is a flash of light streaking up, and the leviathan is gone, presumably to another dimension. The crew get no rest as Kryten scans an incoming signal, and a holographic woman appears. She introduces herself as Katerina Bartikovsky (Sophie Winkleman), a Red Dwarf science officer who is here to take control of the situation, citing that Rimmer is failing as ship's hologram. Katerina makes plans to replace Rimmer and to bring Lister home to restart the human race. She intends to use the dimension hopping abilities of the leviathan's tentacle that the Cat brought back to create a dimension cutting machine with a mining laser. Rimmer tells Kryten to dig up dirt on his holographic rival, and Katerina puts her plans in motion. The episode ends with her using her device to open up a dimension hole. Part Two Katerina opens the portal, but the readings coming from the scanners appear nonsensical, claiming that the dimension they wish to travel to is invalid. Katerina elaborates that apparently they themselves "don't exist". The portal machine locks on instead to a valid alternate reality, stabilizing the portal. To see if the dimension is safe to enter, Katerina shuts down Rimmer's image and sends his light bee through first. Following Rimmer, Lister, Kryten and Cat all appear in a television shop on contemporary Earth in London and discover that their adventures over the past decade have been faithfully documented in our television show Red Dwarf. However, they quickly come to the conclusion that they themselves are not real, and are merely fictional characters; finding a DVD box for the "Back to Earth" special, they are also alarmed to discover that they are to die at the end. Reading the episode description further, they discover that they will track down their creators to plead for an extension, in "true Blade Runner fashion." Following the directions on the box, the crew visit a local science fiction merchandise shop and talk to a (remarkably unfazed) shop assistant, who regrets that he cannot give them the contact details of the actors playing them. Rimmer finds a piece of prop polymorph skin, which Kryten reveals contains the prop maker's name, Swallow. Lister finds a photo of the cast with Swallow, and Rimmer has Kryten enlarge, uncrop, zoom, pan and enhance the image until Swallow's work address is uncovered. Waiting for the bus to take them to Swallow, Rimmer is dismayed to encounter Katerina, who has arrived via a second portal. She proves her own undoing however, when she gloats that it is ethical to kill Rimmer as holograms are already dead, thus causing no moral conflict. Rimmer, thinking fast, takes her at her word and pushes the science officer in front of a bus, apparently causing her image to short out. Lister is slightly cheered when two children approach him on the bus and state that they believe him to be real, expressing their admiration for his better qualities which balance his slobbiness. They also theorize that Kochanski herself is not dead as Kryten claimed- he reported that she had been sucked out of an airlock- but that she stole a Blue Midget to escape Red Dwarf and Lister who was increasingly difficult to live with. Lister, shocked, realizes that although he has been dumped by Kochanski again, she might possibly be alive after all. Arriving at Swallow's address, the crew are disappointed that he knows little of how they will die. The prop maker does however give them an address for the "Big Boss", who knows all about their fate, and the car keys to a vehicle he stole after the end of Series IX (a fictional series). Driving in the Starbug-styled car ("Carbug") the crew arrive at Coronation Street... Part Three Continuity and Homages Rimmer is now once again a hard-light hologram, the end of Series VIII shows him facing the grim reaper as a human, but ends with him kneeing him in the groin and fleeing. It is assumed that he was either caught by the grim reaper, or that it was just a hallucination. Either way, it seems he died and was resurrected as a hard-light hologram. However, we don't know how he got hard-light capability since that is not a feature installed in on Red Dwarf by default (maybe added by the nanobots). Red Dwarf has also changed shape, and now looks more like it did originally, this is never explained. Red Dwarf is found to be still in one piece, and the crew back on it. We do not know how they saved the ship from the corroding virus or how they returned from the mirror universe (it is possible that they are in the mirror universe, but this does not explain their isolation). Kochanski apparently died from being shot out of an airlock. It is also assumed that they never found the rest of the Red Dwarf crew aboard the Starbug and Blue Midget fleet. Holly is offline due to water damage, as described by Rimmer while talking with Katerina. We also don't know what happened to the other version of Holly created by the nanobots, though he could be with the full crew on the Starbug and Blue Midget fleet. Lister tries to read "Sense and Sensibility" to Kochnaski's grave mark. This is based on "Beyond a Joke" (Series VII) where the crew enter a virtual reality version of Kochanski's favourite book, by Jane Austen. There are references to Blade Runner through out and part two very loosely follows some of the plot line. In the scene where Lister visits Kochanski's grave, a picture of Mel Bibby can be seen to the far left of the picture of Kochanski. Bibby was the Production Designer for Red Dwarf Series III to VIII who died in 2002. Rimmer makes note of the fact that Red Dwarf should only be able to sustain one hologram at a time, as established in "The End". Katerina's intent to replace Rimmer due to negligence is very similar to the events of "Queeg" (Series II) and Hudzen 10's intent to replace Kryten in "The Last Day" (Series III). The scene where Rimmer sees the leviathan approaching on the scanner screen is similar to "Back to Reality" (Series V) and when he realizes that he is just seeing a speck on the screen is similar to instances in "Marooned" (Series III) and "Legion" (Series VI). The scene where Rimmer is failing to get the skutters to even a picture is similar to scenes in Series I (such as in "Me²"), though since Rimmer is hard-light, it is unknown why he needs the skutters. Kryten's holiday to the broom cupboard on V deck is similar to Rimmer's holiday to the diesel decks in "Justice" (Series IV). The Cat refers to Lister as a "monkey", like what he did in Series I and II. The point when Rimmer talks about how unfortunate he is to see the crew about to be attacked is similar to the way Rimmer reacted to seeing Lister die in "Future Echoes" (Series I) and when the Cat gets paralyzed with fear after seeing what is happening to Lister in "Terrorform" (Series V). Katernia's insistence for Lister to get a mate to repopulate the human race is similar to the seduction line Lister tries to use in "Camille" (Series IV) and how Rimmer as Ace cared for Lister's "love spuds" in "Emohawk: Polymorph II". The scene where Rimmer is trying to get Kryten to find dirt on Katerina, not knowing she is right behind him, is similar to when he is trash talking Captain Holister in "Pete, Part One" (Series VIII). Lister's pessimism about the dimension cutter is similar to the crew's skepticism about the star drive in "Legion". Rimmer is wearing a uniform similar to what he wore through Series III-V. Production In August 2008, Robert Llewellyn appeared on Seattle public television station, KCTS 9. In an interview, he revealed that BBC Worldwide, in collaboration with another party, had invested in one hour of new Red Dwarf to be filmed in early 2009. Grant Naylor Productions announced that it had been "on the cards" since February 2008. It subsequently transpired that UKTV channel Dave will screen four new 30-minute specials to celebrate the twenty-first anniversary of the show. The new episodes form part of an effort by Dave to screen more original programming, instead of just repeats. It was subsequently announced in January 2009 that the new special was to be a brand new two-part story titled Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, broadcast over the Easter weekend of that year along with a "making of" documentary and a one-off entitled Red Dwarf: Unplugged. On 20 February 2009, it was announced that "Back to Earth" would now be a three part special and that the unplugged episode had been postponed. Unplugged had been described by Craig Charles as "just the four of us - and some chairs - trying to improvise, or rather trying to remember, classic scenes". "Back to Earth" itself was not filmed in front of a studio audience in an effort to help keep the plot a secret. Although this was not the first time this has happened (for instance, Series VII was filmed entirely without a live audience), it is the first time a laughter track is not added for broadcast. It was also the first time Red Dwarf was filmed in high definition, this time using the red camera system. It is shot at a very high, 4000 pixel resolution. On 13 March 2009, SFX magazine announced that they had released a limited edition of issue 181 onto the newsstands. This edition was limited to fifty nationwide and featured the cast of the "Back to Earth" series instead of the standard Doctor Who cover. The magazine also plays an important part in the episode itself, Dave Bradley, editor of SFX is quoted as saying “Our cover plays a key part in the storyline,". Dave started a viral marketing campaign in March, 2009, when www.listerscominghome.co.uk was introduced to the public. The site shows a postcard, and reveals minor details of the show to the viewer. Dave also released several videos on their site, including a mock-advertisement for the "Carbug", a modified Smart Fortwo to fit the shape and style of Starbug. On-set videos also were released, along with short teasers (under ten seconds), with some 30 second teasers as well. Cast members have also written for the Dave blog, releasing small bits of information about the shows. "Back to Earth" is arguably the most noticed Red Dwarf production by the press in its history, having magazines and newspapers releasing promotional articles and images. Plot-wise, lead-actor, Chris Barrie was reported as saying, “Yes, Lister’s dream is about to come true. But like everything in Red Dwarf, nothing is straightforward.” On 4 March, 2009 it was revealed that actress Sophie Winkleman would be playing a character called Katerina Bartikovsky, a resurrected hologram of a Red Dwarf science officer intent on replacing Rimmer (also a hologram once again). Further plot details were explained in issue 181 of the British science fiction magazine, SFX. It was revealed that the episode is set nine years after the events of "Only the Good...", Kochanski is dead and Holly is offline due to water damage caused by Lister leaving a tap running. Reception The first episode achieved overnight ratings of 2.06 million viewers. External links *[http://dave.uktv.co.uk/library/red-dwarf/ Official Dave Back to Earth Blog] *Official Red Dwarf Website *Official Trailer *Dave Promotional Videos Category:Back to Earth Category:Episodes Category:Series